Most general-purpose computer systems are designed to operate by processing commands as they are inputted. As a result, the only information such a computer system typically possesses about the condition of its user is the commands issued by the user. In particular, such a computer system generally only possesses this very limited type of information about the user's condition for the short time during which the computer system is processing the command.
A few special-purpose application programs that execute on general-purpose computer systems maintain a record of the commands issued by the user. For example, the Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator web browser applications accept commands, to display particular web pages, and have a “history” feature that maintains and displays a list of web page requests made by the user. The history feature enables the user to review his or her web page requests, and to resubmit a web page request by selecting it from the list.
While such application history features can be useful, they are not extensively configurable with respect to either the identity of the information that they record, the manner in which they record it, the manner in which they maintain it once recorded, or the nature of any later-performed analysis on the recorded information. Further, such history features are inherently limited to recording information in the possession of their host applications, and thus do not record other information such as the state of other applications, the operating system, or the computer system hardware. Such history features also fail to record information about the user, or about the environment surrounding the computer system and/or the user.
Accordingly, a facility in a general-purpose computer system for selectively recording, maintaining, and analyzing information about the computer system, a user, and/or their environment would have significant utility.